On July 19, 2018, a tornado ravaged Emily Barske Wood’s hometown of Marshalltown, Iowa, a Midwestern community heavily populated by immigrants. It was her ninth day as editor of the city’s newspaper when she was forced to huddle with colleagues in the basement of the Times-Republican building on Main Street.
The storm struck more than two thousand structures in the town of seventy-seven thousand residents. It became apparent that many affected residents were uninsured or underinsured. Some had no choice but to stay in dilapidated homes, others paid contractors only to be scammed, and some insurance payouts didn’t even begin to cover repairs. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declined to offer relief to individuals affected by the tornado because it said the tornado did not meet the “severity and magnitude” criteria to qualify. Despite an appeal from Iowa’s governor, FEMA would only grant public assistance to local government entities to fix public buildings and clean up.
Hidden Storm puts readers in the thick of the disaster and then follows sources for five years after the storm, showing what happens when the systems meant to protect people fail to do so. It also provides an intimate look at the immigrant experience, small towns, and the resilience needed to keep moving forward.